The memory leaves me shaken. I’m about to take a moment to collect myself in the ladies’ room when Alex slips an arm around my shoulders and presses a kiss to my cheek. “I’m so glad you’re here. You look beautiful.”
I smile up at him. It doesn’t matter what happened last time around. Alex and I are fine now.
We grab our drinks and make the rounds. The upside of being kind of a big mouth is that I’m not shy, and I’m comfortable talking to all kinds of people. It also helps that I work for Xavier. He’s been on Top Chef and the Food Network, and he has a best-selling cookbook, so people want the inside story of what it’s like to work for him. Mostly, I do a lot of lying about how great it is.
After Alex has done a sufficient amount of schmoozing, we make our way to a circle of outdoor couches arranged under a string of twinkling lights. A group of people from his office are sitting around with cocktails in their hands, and Alex and I take the last two seats. Alex immediately gets sucked into a conversation about finance-related things that are completely over my head, so I introduce myself to the man sitting on the other side of me.
He gives me a firm handshake and tells me his name is Brett.
“I don’t think we’ve met before, have we?” I ask. By this point, I know most of Alex’s coworkers.
“No, I’d definitely remember meeting you.” He flashes his perfectly straight, white teeth, and I almost expect them to glint with a cartoony sparkle. Is he hitting on me? Because I’m pretty sure he saw me sit down with my boyfriend.
Brett tells me he’s a recent hire at Alex’s company, and then launches into a ten-minute monologue about all the firms that were competing for him. Finally, he seems to remember that conversations are supposed to go two ways, because he asks me, “So, what do you do, Sadie?”
“I work at Xavier’s. It’s a restaurant in Williamsburg.”
He nods. “Yeah, I’ve heard of Xavier’s. Never been, though.” He gives me a shrug. “To be honest, I don’t make it out of Manhattan much, unless I’m headed to the Hamptons.”
Right. “Sorry to hear that, Brett.”
“But you never know,” he continues. “With the right motivation, I might be convinced to come out and try it.” He gives me a meaningful look, and I stare back at him.
If Brett is expecting me to convince him to come out to Xavier’s, he’s going to be waiting a very long time.
Brett finally breaks the silence. “I’m not surprised you’re in the restaurant business.”
“Really?” I’m at the edge of my seat to see where he’s going with this.
“Yeah.” He flashes me another glinty grin. “You seem like you’d do really well in the kind of job where you work for tips.”
Wow.
“Well!” I keep my voice sugary sweet. “It’s nice to meet you, Brett.” I shift in my seat so I can angle my arm into Alex’s side and press my knee against his. He keeps talking to the guy to his right, so I give him a good jab with my elbow. Finally, Alex seems to realize that I want his attention. He turns and puts an arm around me. “I think my girlfriend is trying to tell me something,” Alex says to the guy he’s been talking to, and they both laugh. “Do you need another drink, honey?”
“Yes. I definitely need another drink.”
We head to the bar and order cocktails. “Well, I met the new guy, Brett,” I tell Alex, rolling my eyes. “He seems like a real charmer.”
Alex shrugs. “He’s not so bad when you get to know him.”
I have a flash of Kasumi rebuking me for putting up with Alex’s finance-bro friends. I can almost hear her muttering, On what planet would Brett ever be not so bad? And damn it. I miss her.
I look out across the rooftop, scanning the party guests. “Is that new woman here?” I ask Alex. “The one you hired a couple of months back?” Most of the women I meet at these events are girlfriends or wives. It’s nice to remember that in addition to Brett, they recently hired a qualified woman, too.
“Um, no.” Alex’s gaze slides over my shoulder to the view of the skyline.
“Oh, too bad. Why didn’t she come?”
“Uh, not sure,” he says, turning to take our drinks from the bartender.
I cock my head, trying to meet his gaze. “Maybe I’ll meet her next time.”
“Maybe.” Alex hands me my drink, but still doesn’t make eye contact. I watch him scan the crowd, almost like he’s looking for someone to save him. It takes a minute, but when it comes to me, a knot forms in my gut.
“I’m not going to meet her, am I?” I slowly shake my head. “Because you didn’t actually hire her.”
Alex sets his old-fashioned down on the bar. “Look…”
“Oh God.” I didn’t think it could get worse, but it just got worse. “You hired Brett instead, didn’t you?”
Alex clears his throat. “There were a lot of factors that went into the decision.”
I cross my arms over my chest. “Did you even talk to Zach about hiring her? Or was that just something you said to get me to be quiet?”
Alex sighs like he wishes he could get me to be quiet right now. “I’m doing what I can, but there’s only so much I have control over. You don’t know what the culture is like in an industry like finance.”
“Right,” I say. “I have no idea about sexist workplaces. Are you kidding? I’ve spent my entire career in restaurant kitchens where women are treated like second-class citizens. But just because something is ‘the culture’ doesn’t mean you just sit down and accept it.”
I can still feel Rob Thurmond’s hand on my ass. How many times did those other men around the table look the other way and let him get away with touching women like that? With treating women like that? Maybe they even did it themselves because “the culture” told them it was okay. I look at Alex. “You have the power to push back and change things.”
Alex scrubs a hand through his hair, leaving it sticking out on one side. I’d normally fix it for him because I know he’d hate to look messy at a work event. But right now, all I can think is Good.
“When you’re a professional, there are conventions you follow,” he says. “You can’t just make a scene if you don’t like how something is done.” He glances around us, probably to make sure we’re not making a scene.
Right now, I’m beyond caring about scenes. “I’m sorry, can we go back a minute? What do you mean by ‘when you’re a professional’?”
“I—” Alex stalls, and he seems to realize what he’s said.
“You mean like you have a real job and I don’t.”
“I didn’t mean it like that.”
“What did you mean?”
He presses on his temples as if that might hold back his frustration. Then he drops his hands to his side and turns to me with his eyes flashing. “You make pastries, Sadie. You’re very good at it. But it’s not the same. I’m dealing with millions of dollars of my clients’ money on a daily basis.”